About FoodMayhem

In the chaotic kitchen of a recipe developer, you get a food blog called FoodMayhem.

I'm Jessica, an Asian-American, born and raised in NYC, and that's Lon, my Jewish, white husband. While professionally trained as a French culinary- and pastry chef, many of FoodMayhem recipes are my attempt to preserve and share authentic Chinese and Taiwanese recipes learned from my mom. We don't eat Chinese food every day, so you'll get a little bit of anything we find delicious enough to share: from our Eastern European side; recipes and techniques learned from my restaurant days; restaurant reviews, food travel tips; and a few other juicy bits along the way. Welcome to FoodMayhem!

Recipes that include beer

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

I saw a Chocolate Stout Cake on 1Family Friendly Food, who had adapted their recipe from Closet Cooking, so I decided to have a little version of our own. We don’t have stout around but still have plenty of that Blackened Voodoo Lager from when we made Crawfish Gumbo and I just had to make them into cupcakes. (I tried really hard not to, but I did end up making two sizes again, regular and minis.)

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Crawfish Gumbo was, by a good margin, the winner of the FoodMayhem Reader’s Choice: Crawfish Season, receiving 35.7% of the votes. There are many recipes already available online for Crawfish Gumbo, so my goal was to write a definitive guide. I’ve made gumbo quite a few times in the past, so I have a few tips to share. This post is more about the tips than anything else.

The number one tip I have for you is (Tip #1): Don’t attempt to make gumbo unless you’re planning to spend the whole day making it!